Crack!

One clumsy, telegraphed claw-swipe from Camazotz was still sufficient to cleave through the trunk of a small tree, sending it toppling to the forest floor. [Lesser Strength]’s benefits were self-evident. Still, it was good that we were doing these tests: I already had a bunch of notes for version 1.5 of his forelimbs. The hooked talons I’d added to his thumb and new forefinger had made it impossible for him to make a fist without cutting himself. He could walk on his knuckles well enough, but punches had proven nonviable.

The corpse-eater bat leapt into the air and clung sideways to another, thicker tree. Perpendicular to the trunk, he dug his talons into the bark and, with a roar of effort, pulled with his arms and pushed with his feet. The trunk creaked, then cracked, then split. Camazotz clambered free of the tree as it toppled at the break with a groan of tearing wood. He threw open his wings and let loose a screeching cry of triumph before flapping them several times, breathing hard from the exercise, to cool himself.

“Damn!” Kizurra said, slapping his knee. “That was cool as hell!”

“That was pretty sick,” Nar-shesh said, grudgingly impressed.

“And that’s before his [Boss] buffs,” I said. “Imagine what he’ll do to adventurers.” The goblins and I paused for a moment to contemplate this.

“Grisly,” Nar-shesh opined.

“Here’s hoping!” I said. “There’s room for improvement, though. I’ve been thinking-”

“Wow, that’s new,” Kizurra said. “Careful, don’t hurt yourself.”

“You’re hilarious. Anyway — we should be training. Group, individual, sparring, mock battles, weapon practice. Drilling everyone on what to do in response to an attack on the dungeon. All of that stuff. I don’t know much about it, but I know better than to think that nobody will panic and everyone will magically know what to do when the time comes.”

Nar-shesh thought about it for a moment. “You’re probably right,” he said. “The war lodges would usually be in charge of that sort of thing. I’d just been waiting for… but I guess there’s none of them left.”

“Nope,” Kizurra said, popping his lips. “Tazgiz was the last, and he drowned while we were fording that river at night. You remember that one?”

“Can’t believe that dumb motherfucker never learned to swim,” Nar-shesh said, shaking his head in bleak amusement. “So it’s up to us.”

“It’s up to us,” I said. “Well, specifically, it’s up to you. I’ve got dungeon stuff that needs doing. Can’t delegate that; can delegate this.”

He sighed, and nodded. “Alright. I’ll figure something out.”

“Let me know if you need anything from me,” I said. “Mutations, materials, whatever. And be sure to work with Camazotz and Striga. Their bodies are weapons that neither them nor I have any experience with. We need to help them figure out how to use them.”

Speaking of which, where was Striga? I hadn’t really been supervising her closely the past few days. That was probably not super-smart of me, but between keeping an eye on Abzu and everything else I’d had to pay attention to, something was inevitably going to slip through the cracks. I cast my awareness across my domain, searching for her. She wasn’t in the forest. Had she gone out hunting for the night? No, as it turned out. I found her down in the caves of the second floor. I hadn’t even noticed her go down there. What was she doing? She was…

Hm! That was a little alarming.

----------------------------------------

It was hard being Striga, Striga felt. It was hard and nobody understood. Watch the pathetic human girl-thing, Striga. Feed the pathetic human girl-thing, Striga. Don’t rip her guts out and eat them, Striga.

Well, how was she supposed to do any of that when the pathetic human girl-thing was asleep all the time?!

Clearly, the Big Stupid Voice (which was how Striga referred to Persephone) had given this no thought whatsoever. Striga was an owl, a famously nocturnal bird. Pacifica was a human, a more-or-less diurnal creature. How was Striga supposed to feed her, take care of her, and keep her safe when their schedules were diametrically opposite? The goblins might not be giving the food she brought them to Pacifica. They might just be eating it all themselves. Persephone assured her they weren’t, but Striga had no way of knowing for sure!

And while Striga was asleep, Pacifica was awake and unsupervised. She might be getting into all kinds of stupid mishaps , like wandering into the woods and getting attacked by other humans, or other birds, or even that giant magic stag. And then it would be Striga’s fault, and the Big Stupid Voice would talk to Striga like she was the stupid one even though the Voice had given her an impossible task!

It would be fair to say that Striga was frustrated. Cranky, even. For the past few days she’d even been trying to stay up later and wake up earlier, to have a few hours of overlap with Pacifica — not that anyone seemed to notice or appreciate how hard she was working! — and the sleep deprivation was fraying her nerves.

Frustrated. Desperate, even, in the way of one confronted with a problem that swatted down any attempts at solving it. Surely only desperation could have driven her to her current humiliating situation.

That is to say, specifically, looming over Pacifica’s bed and watching her as she slept.

The thought kept rising, and Striga kept pushing it back down, that this wasn’t a good use of her time. Watching Pacifica sleep didn’t make her safer. If anything, it put her more in danger because Striga’s guard was down. She couldn’t watch Pacifica sleep and keep an eye out for potential threats at the same time, after all.

Of course, the human’s guard was down too. This would have been a perfect opportunity for Striga to pounce on her and eviscerate her as she’d been longing to do for days now. Would have been, except for the same problem that had stayed Striga’s talons for all those days, which was that the Big Stupid Voice had said that Striga’s life would be forfeit if she harmed Pacifica. Now, Striga hadn’t seen anything from the Voice to suggest that the big weird lump of meat at the bottom of the cave could take her in a fight — Striga could just fly away, after all! But some instinct in her, something encoded in her very marrow, told her not to go against the Voice. The Voice was dangerous. Striga didn’t know how she was dangerous, exactly, but she was.

The point was, Striga wasn’t keeping the human safe, and she wasn’t getting ready to eat her, so sitting here watching her sleep didn’t advance any of Striga’s goals. Why? Why was she here? Why couldn’t she look away from that weird, fleshy, squishy face, brow furrowed with unease even in sleep? From her lips, slightly parted, their curves repulsively soft and delicate compared to a proper beak? Why was Striga’s life so difficult? Why did nobody appreciate her? Why, why, why?

“Heeeeeey, Striga,” came the Voice’s voice, trying to sound nonchalant and failing. “Whatcha doing?”

“Nothing,” Striga said, shifting her talons guiltily.

“Really? Because it looks like you’re looming menacingly over Pacifica and thinking about eating her. Which I specifically told you not to do.”

“Wasn’t,” Striga said, shaking her head in denial like Persephone had taught her. “Just looking. No eating.”

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Alright. Well, anyway, come back upstairs. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Stupid Voice. Stupid orders. Stupid sleeping Pacifica. Striga waddled awkwardly back through the caves to the central staircase. Her wings made nary a sound as she flew up the shaft to the surface, emerging into the moonlight in the eerie silence characteristic of her species. That made it all the more unexpected when a head swivelled to track her movements. Striga’s wings faltered for a beat as red, glowing eyes met her own. Her talons caught a thick branch and she perched there, looking down at the hulking winged figure. It was… a weird-looking bat? Striga had seen bats before, of course. They were — or had been, before her mutation — intriguingly bite-sized, but far too fast and maneuverable in the air to catch. This bat was definitely not bite-sized, though. It was big. Worryingly big. Striga was, of course, the ultimate predator and undefeatable in combat, but she had to admit she wasn’t entirely confident in her odds if she had to step to this thing.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Striga, meet Camazotz,” Persephone said. She paused, then, audibly cringing, went on. “He is… your new baby brother?”

Striga evaluated this proposition and found it dubious. She said as much. “Nuh-uh.”

“Yes he is. Don’t be mean.”

“That’s a bat. I’m an owl,” she said, pointing out the obvious fact that the Big Stupid Voice had somehow missed.

“Yes, but — I created both of you. So, while you might not be biologically related, you are, in that sense, both my children and therefore siblings.”

Owls didn’t really have the facial muscles necessary to frown, but Striga would have frowned at that if she could. “You didn’t make me,” she said. “I came out of an egg.”

“That’s true…” Persephone said. “Interesting. So you do have continuity of consciousness with your pre-transformation self? Given the changes I made to your brain, I wasn’t sure if you would.”

Striga developed an immediate headache as [Apophic Tongue] crammed ‘continuity of consciousness’ into her mind through the still-narrow aperture of her understanding. “Maybe? Ow.” She looked at Camazotz. “I bet she isn’t your mom either. Bet you came from an egg too.”

The bat just tilted his head, uncomprehending.

“Huh?” she said challengingly. “You come from an egg? Stupid?”

Camazotz’s ears twitched, and he made a chittering noise in response. Striga saw nothing in his glowing red eyes to indicate he understood her. The mutated bat didn’t even seem to realize that she was being rude and confrontational. She found this intensely irritating, for reasons she couldn’t articulate.

Persephone sighed. “Camazotz didn’t come from an egg, Striga. Bats don’t lay eggs. They’re mammals. Anyway, don’t be grumpy, be excited! It’ll be good! You won’t have so much work to do. Camazotz is gonna be helping out with things around the dungeon — hunting for food, fighting off adventurers, lifting heavy objects, sentry duty, all that stuff. ”

Striga waited for Persephone to keep talking. The silence had stretched for an awkward moment before she realized that was the complete list. Persephone hadn’t even mentioned Striga’s actual problem — Pacifica! Camazotz wasn’t going to help force Pacifica to fix her stupid diurnal sleep schedule. He wasn’t going to stop her from wandering around the woods like a stupid helpless baby and getting eaten by goblins or bigger human women that were on fire sometimes or giant mutated animals. It was like Persephone had completely forgotten what Striga’s actual job was — particularly galling given that she was the one who’d given it to Striga in the first place!

Striga felt something rising through her guts. It was like trying to puke up world’s biggest bird pellet, only instead of a lump of undigestible rodent bones and fur it was undigestible feelings — anger, resentment, even a hint of fear. The mess of emotions welled higher and higher in her as she looked at the confused, hapless expression on the giant bat’s features. Just staring at her. It didn’t understand her problems. The Big Stupid Voice didn’t understand her problems. Nobody understood Striga’s problems. Nobody understood Striga. Even Striga didn’t understand Striga — didn’t have the words to explain what she was feeling, to put a name to her desires. So she expressed herself with the tools she had, as best she knew how.

“Stupid!!” she screeched. “Ugly! Stupid!” Her head stayed in place, glaring at Camazotz and at an arbitrary point over his head that she’d decided Persephone’s voice was coming from, but her body smoothly rotated beneath it as she turned her back on her mother and her sibling. Flipping her tail up, she expressed what she thought of them and this whole situation by defecating in their direction. “Poop!” she said, in conclusion and in case they still somehow didn’t get the message. She snapped her head back around angrily enough that she got dizzy for a moment, then flapped off angrily into the woods. Maybe killing something would make her feel better.

----------------------------------------

“Well, that could have gone better,” I said as Striga flew away. “I’m sorry, Camazotz, that was rude of her.”

“What was?” Camazotz asked guilelessly.

“The… part where she called you ugly and stupid? Did you not catch any of that?”

He shook his head.

“Oh, huh. I guess I’d assumed that animals could all understand each other, since-” I cut myself off before saying since this is a fantasy world. “-Whatever you’re saying is enough of a language for [Apophic Tongue] to translate it for me.”

“I just want to reiterate,” Nar-shesh said. “That none of the rest of us have been able to understand a thing that Striga or Camazotz are saying this whole time.”

“Skill issue. Try harder,” I said. “No, just kidding, I take your point. This could become an actual problem. Hm.” I thought for a moment. “So, remember that training plan I told you to come up with?”

“It was literally like a conversation and a half ago, so yes, I remember,” he said with a raised eyebrow. “Why?”

“Add a part where we teach Striga and Camazotz how to speak Goblin,” I said.

He nodded. “I’ll put Malik and Kizurra on it, since they’re already teaching Pacifica.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “I’ll talk to Striga when she gets back.”

He nodded and went to go talk to the others. I turned my attention back to Camazotz.

“Alright, champ,” I said. “Not to drop a second transformative life event on you right after the first one, but that’s exactly what I’m gonna do. You’re gonna be one of my boss monsters.”

“Oh,” he said, with another innocent blink of his glowing red eyes. “What’s a boss monster?”

“They’re like… my champions. My strongest fighters, the strategic cornerstones of the dungeon’s defenses.”

“Oh. Why?”

“Why am I making a boss monster in general, or why you specifically?”

He flicked one ear a few times. “Both?”

“I picked you because you were already bigger than the other bats,” I said. “If only by a little bit. And I wanted a bat for the job, for reasons we’ll get into later. As for why I’m making boss monsters in general, that’s a little more complicated.”

I paused. How could I explain armed self-defense in terms a child would understand, without lapsing into fashy “there’s fundamentally evil people out there who want to come and steal everything we have” rhetoric? I didn’t want to give him weird ideas that would warp his development.

“The short version of the answer is that… okay, you know bugs? The things you eat for food?” Camazotz nodded. “There’s a thing out there that’s so big that we’re like bugs to it. A beast as big as the world. It has a lot of names: Leviathan, Moloch, Capital. Heaven. It eats us, just like bats eat bugs. Do you understand? Tilt your head down then up again if you do.” He nodded, as per my instructions. “Alright, cool. Anyway, I created you to kill it.”

“Oh,” he said. He pondered this for a moment, ears twitching as he thought. “And it’s as big as the whole world?”

“Yeah, or thereabouts.”

He looked himself up and down, assessing his mutated hulk of a body in light of this new information, then looked back up, a woebegone expression on his face. “All by myself?”

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at that. “No! No, you’ll have help killing it. Lots of help. I promise. But you see why I made you so big, now.”

He nodded again with a child’s seriousness. “I might need to be even bigger.”

“Yeah, it might come to that,” I said. “Anyway, let’s do this. You’re gonna get a boss skill selection pop-up in a second. Do not pick a skill until we’ve read through them together and discussed your options. Got it?” He nodded, so I pulled up my system menu and finalized his designation as my second-floor boss. Following the notification that I had unspent boss skill points, I tabbed over to Camazotz’s character sheet. As before with Nar-shesh, there were three options.

[Hardened Bones]

Prerequisites: [Death] mythos

Large bonus to hardness of all bones. Large bonus to drop rate and quality of bone materials.

SYNERGY (Mutagenic Domain): Small bonus to level-up mutation chance. Rate of bone mutation increased, rate of other mutations decreased.

[Frenzied Undeath]

Prerequisites: [Curse] or [Death] mythos

Upon death, reanimate after a short delay as an aggressive undead with significant increases to some base stats and to unarmed attack damage. Good chance to manifest up to (floor depth) combat-oriented mutations upon reanimation.

[Shadowstep]

Cost: Small

Keywords: Cooldown (short)

Duration: Instant

Move from one area of darkness to another within short range. Areas of darkness must be of sufficient size to admit passage.

[Frenzied Undeath] had also been one of Nar-shesh’s boss skill options. I wondered how large the boss skill pool wasn’t, if I was already getting repeats. Was I getting throttled by my lack of prerequisite skills or mythos aspects? These were somewhat abstract questions, but they were on my mind for one immediate, practical reason. That reason?

“These skills all fucking suck!”